Zentropa opens new German connection in Hamburg

20/05/2015 - CANNES 2015: Set up with DetailFilm’s Henning Kamm and Fabian Gasmia, Zentropa Hamburg will co-produce and “develop a slate of German content with great international appeal”

Denmark’s Zentropa Entertainments, which has an involvement in companies in 11 European countries outside Denmark, has set up Zentropa Hamburg with German producers Henning Kamm and Fabian Gasmia, it was announced at the Cannes Film Festival yesterday (19 May). Zentropa already has outfits in Berlin and Cologne.

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“For many years, Zentropa has had a great cooperation with Germany, and this new joint venture with Kamm and Gasmia, who have already produced a number of strong films for their own DetailFilm, will further strengthen our business relationship,” said producer Louise Vesth, of Zentropa Entertainments.

Now half-owned by Danish major Nordisk Film, Danish producer Peter Aalbæk Jensen and director Lars von Trier’s company will produce “strong films and TV series with an international potential” with the Hamburg arm, which will also be attached as a co-producer on a string of new projects.

“Zentropa Hamburg makes perfect sense for both partners – we will co-produce exceptional films together and develop a slate of German content with great international appeal,” say Gasmia and Kamm (who most recently won the Grand Jury Prize at Dallas last year for Italian director Carlo Zoratti’s The Special Need[+see also: trailerfilm profile]).

Their first co-production will be Norwegian director Hans Petter Moland’s A Conspiracy of Faith[+see also: trailerfilm profile], the third instalment in the Danish Department Q series, based on Danish author Jussi Adler-Olsen’s thrillers, which is currently shooting in Denmark and Germany (see the news).

They will also back Moland’s next project, the Viking saga The Long Ships, and Danish director Kristian Levring’s Devil’s Lake, a prohibition-era drama, which will shoot next spring in Prague, with the Czech Republic’s Sirena Film. Last year, Levring delivered the western The Salvation[+see also: trailerinterview: Kristian Levringfilm profile], which was selected for a Midnight Screening at Cannes.

Kamm and Gasmia will replace the head of Zentropa Berlin, Maria Köpf, who has been appointed as the new CEO of Filmförderung Hamburg Schleswig-Holstein. The collaboration under way since 2002 with Zentropa Cologne and its general manager, Bettina Brokemper, will continue unchanged.

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